Wise counsel and roller coasters and teeter-totters

Proverbs is full of wisdom and advice to listen to wise counsel:

• "Fools think they need no advice, but the wise listen to others." 12:15
• "The advice of the wise is like a life-giving fountain; those who accept it avoid the snares of death." 13:14
• "Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many counselors bring success." 15:22
• "If you listen to constructive criticism, you will be at home among the wise. If you reject criticism, you only harm yourself; but if you list to correction, you grow in understanding." 15:31-32

There are many more, but you get the idea.

Now, I gotta tell ya, I don't like to be told what to do! I never have! I know what's best for me, right? Well, not so much! Over the years, I have learned to seek counsel, have developed a small group of very trusted individuals off of whom I bounce things - sometimes after the fact, sadly, but I digress - and whom I trust to pray for me and any situation with which I may be struggling. I offer the same to them. But it is not easy for me to hear wise counsel when it does not fall in line with my wants and desires. Sometimes it's downright irritating and grumpy-making! Even when I've asked for it, and if I haven't? Oy vay! But I do try to listen and make thoughtful, wise, Godly decisions based upon God's Word and the wise counsel of other Godly individuals.

This week, just the last couple days in fact, I have received some wise counsel - mostly uninvited, but just what I needed to hear! Things that I hadn't thought of on this grief/healing journey I am walking. I want to share.

First up: My friend, Rachel Moore, posted the following reply to another friend's anguished cry of sorrow and loneliness for her husband. 

 [Name withheld], I feel deeply for you as everyone has expressed. But I want to point something out to all of us. DEATH WAS NEVER INTENDED TO BE GOD'S WILL!!!! If we miss that truth we will walk in confusion and despair through this life. We live in a FALLEN planet. When Adam sinned, the world that God created for his children disappeared and it changed TREMENDOUSLY! The reason why Gary (my husband) died is because we live in a fallen planet and we have all sinned. Now I also believe that God holds all of us in the palm of his hand, yet, we as believers are not exempt from the fact that [s]atan is the God of this world and that sin pervades everything and that the curse is more profound than we can comprehend. Everything in us screams, 'THIS IS NOT HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE" and God and all the angels in heaven say, AMEN!!!! It is NOT supposed to be this way. This isn't the world that God created. God created Adam and Eve to live in perfect harmony with him forever. We were never created to become widows and yet, all have sinned and all live in this world under the curse. We are redeemed, but we don't live in the fullness of that redemption until eternity. Jesus paid for the curse so that we only have to live this way for somewhere around 70 years, give or take a decade or two (or three) but when we are saved we aren't suddenly removed from the fallenness of this world. Nothing on this planet is "the way it is supposed to be". Anyone who has done any missionary work will tell you that. Any one who has walked the streets with the homeless can tell you that. anyone who has been to an Auschwitz concentration camp can testify that this world is fallen. So I just want to encourage you that the agony and the injustice that you feel inside is correct but all of this isn't God's ultimate will any more than any of the above mentioned things were his doing. Yes, he holds his children in the palm of his hand, he cares when the sparrow falls but the rain does still fall on the just and the unjust. I would venture to say that there are just as many believers receiving chemo today than unbelievers. We live in a disease filled and sin filled world. Jesus came for our eternal redemption and praise God we don't have to travel in this world forever!

 Wow! This really made me think. This wasn't news to me, but was something I had forgotten to remember as I have walked the last several painful months. I have often said that God allows everything that happens in our lives, and He does for He is the Master of the universe and can change the very laws of nature at will. But man chose to step outside the perfect will of God and by doing so let in all kinds of yuck! Unfortunately, that means that none of us can walk in God's perfect will, for his perfect will does not include sin in the world - the result of which is sickness and pain and death and all other imperfections of life. So, to say that it was God's will for Al, or anyone else, to die is incorrect. To say that because of sin in the world we all must die and God chooses that time is far more accurate. God does not "will" loneliness, sorrow, loss of any kind, for any of us! But He does provide us with a way through it when it comes! Thank you for your wisdom, Rachel!

Second: My friend, Lori Barney, was relaying her recent vacation, her first without her beloved, and made the comment, "...sometimes we stop to catch our breath, but we can't stay there." She went on to say in reply to my comment on her post:

 You know Gina, I have climbed Pikes Peak many times with Dan, our kids, friends and for races. I have taken "first timers" up there too and there is one piece of advice I give everyone as you get to the last 2 miles- when you are feeling the lack of oxygen and your legs feel like heavy tree stumps. Everyone thinks "I can't do this" and your inclination is to stop and sit down to rest. But, that is the worst thing you can do.

You can slow down but if you stop, it takes so much more energy to get going again and some can't. This is where the altitude and their mind gets the best of them. It is truly mind over matter at that point. So... my advice is always "Step, breathe, step, breathe, step, breathe". And before you know it they are at the summit. This is a reminder to myself with this grief journey too.

 WOWWOWWOWWOWWOW!!!! That is exactly what I have done the last couple months! I stopped to catch my breath and never got up!!! "Step, breathe, step, breathe, step, breath". Much easier than the mad dash to the top I was attempting before I became so worn I just had to stop - and became frozen in place!

Third: I went to dinner with a group of friends who have all survived employment at a certain unnamed employer. We meet together once a month or so and laugh and giggle and share what's going on in our lives. I shared the struggles I had been having over the last several months and my determination to return to looking for the good, the positive,

the silver lining that is inside every dark cloud. I was using my hands to demonstrate the journey I have been on over the past several years saying that it was like a roller coaster with extreme highs and sudden plunges. Think about a roller coaster with all its highs and lows, twists and turns, upside down, black tunnels, extreme fear, great exhilaration, dread, anticipation. It's great fun for the minute and a half that it takes to complete. But when we allow our lives to be a roller coaster ride with no break in between, just constant looping - well, it makes us sick!!! I went on to say that I needed to find a balance between allowing myself to grieve and allowing myself to live, using my hands to make a slight opposite up and down motion indicating balance. I've used the roller coaster analogy often. But over the last month as I have been being still and waiting on God, He has been telling me that I don't need to be on a roller coaster. 

 So what to do? How do I get off? How do I live life which is full of ups and downs, twists and turns, loop-d-loops, dark tunnels? My friend Tiffany had an epiphany! (Hey, I'm a poet! ;-)) She said that watching my hands make the opposing up and down motion made her think of a teeter-totter and that maybe I needed to stop seeing my life as a roller coaster

and begin seeing it as a teeter-totter with God as the balance. Wowzers! There are ups and downs. We are on one end. Who is on the other? If we invite God to be our teeter-totter partner, sometimes we will be on the top, up in the air, looking at the view. Sometimes we will be on the bottom, getting sand in our shorts. But mostly, we will be balanced, happily going along a mild up and down motion that is simultaneously thrilling and calming. Because God is our balance! Not our circumstances. Not our losses. Not our grief. Not our jobs. Not our children. Not our spouses. Not our....... anything! God, whose weight adjusts perfectly to ours, who never jumps off and sends us crashing to the ground! Rather, when He allows the ground bump, He has only adjusted His weight momentarily for purposes known only to Him. But He will not leave us there unless we start piling on rocks and loading our shorts with sand to keep us weighted down. Then, He allows us to have our way, waiting patiently, gently saying "Throw off the rocks, My love, empty the sand out of your pockets, Gina. It's time to rise from the ground!" Thank you for that new picture, Tiff!!!!

So, no more roller coaster for me! And you know what? God showed me just how to get off! On any roller coaster, when the cars are at the bottom and start that looooooooooong climb to the top, it is very slow. You can feel the train straining, struggling with its burden of people to get to the top. Well, that's where I am. At the bottom, with the roller coaster going slow and struggling to get to the top! And I have unbuckled my belt, raised that bar, and climbed right out! I went at a dead run last night to my teeter-totter and guess who I saw holding it steady, waiting for my arrival? There was my Jesus! I climbed right on and let me tell you, I'm throwing sand out of my pockets as fast as I can. And there sits my Jesus on the other end, adjusting His weight to help me rise, smiling gently at me, saying "I love you so much, Gina! I'm so proud of you for taking that step of faith! I know that even at the bottom of the roller coaster track the ground and this teeter-totter looked very far away! Together, we can make this ride much more pleasant! I may sometimes take you high, I may sometimes let you bump the ground, but I will always be here to balance things out and keep you mostly in the pleasant, smooth, up and down that you enjoy. Keep your eyes on Me, My love, I will not let you drop!"

Praise God forever and forever!!!